


The Spin of the Wheel

by Xiolette (Writing_Doodle)



Series: NXAU - Nobody Xion AU [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts, Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Afterlife, And Nio Is Very Upset Over How Her Life Turned Out, Deal with a Devil, Dialogue Heavy, Gambling, Gen, In a way, Joshua Is God, NXAU - Nobody Xion AU, Original Character(s), Xion is a regular Nobody instead of a replica and her homeworld is Shibuya, in a way!!!, in! a! way!, who's ready for another esoteric crossover??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 13:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22250044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_Doodle/pseuds/Xiolette
Summary: She was walking across the street and then she wasn't."Tragic, isn't it?"-In which Nio has to make a choice, but neither of her options are very good.
Series: NXAU - Nobody Xion AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601737
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	The Spin of the Wheel

**Author's Note:**

> This is a thing I talk about sometimes on tumblr! It's a fun thing to explore!

“Tragic, isn’t it?” Were the first words Nio heard after everything went dark.

One second, she was crossing the street and the next… she was here. Wherever  _ here  _ was. There was something  _ off  _ about the room in a way she couldn’t even begin to articulate. Something about the way the air buzzed… it made her skin crawl. She rubbed her arms to smooth down the goosebumps and slowly took in the room. It was cold and damp in a way that made it feel more like a cave, despite the luxurious furniture. The couch she was sitting on was uncomfortable in the way the most expensive couches were - stiff leather, no cushion. Purely aesthetic. 

There was a bar, shelves brimming with meticulously ordered bottles of alcohol, tonics, and syrups. The man behind the counter definitely  _ looked  _ like someone who would work at a trendy bar - hair gel, stubble, vest, and all. The man lazily wiped down the counter, though it was already spotless. 

Then… there was the thing sitting across from her. She was trying really hard to avoid acknowledging that. She could only assume it was a person but beyond that, she was at a loss for words. It was a complete absence of matter - a blank space in the vague shape of a person sitting cross-legged on a couch. The longer she stared at the space where a person should be, the more she saw, the more visions crossed her mind. The glint of the sun reflecting off the windows of a skyscraper, weeds sprouting from the cracks in the sidewalk, the graffiti under the overpass, and the thousands of people crossing the street; it was all there, condensed and distilled into a single shape, constantly shifting to accommodate new, passing information. 

It gave her a headache. She couldn’t look away. 

The man behind the counter cleared his throat, drawing both of their attention, “You might want to tune your vibes down a little, boss. You’re giving her an aneurysm.” 

The figure across from her sighed, though it sounded more like a burst of static. It shifted and reformed, turning into something more… human. Human- _ like _ , anyway. It was no longer everything condensed to the point of nonexistence, it was the figure of an adult bathed in a light that washed away any distinguishing features. The edges of its form warped and buzzed like an old TV that lost connection. 

“Is that better?” The figure asked, annoyance seeping into its… it wasn’t a  _ voice.  _ It was a radio broadcast, lost in time, coming from nowhere and everywhere. Music played behind it - the simple, haunting melody of a piano and the deep vibration of a cello. 

She shuddered and hugged herself tighter, but she nodded slowly. 

“Good,” the figure said in its music voice that shook in her bones. “We have some things to discuss.” 

“W-who are you?” Nio asked, unable to keep her voice from shaking. 

The figure paused and tilted its head towards the man at the bar. The man frowned and gave a small shrug. The figure looked back at Nio. “It would take too long for me to discuss the intricacies of my existence, and, frankly, it won’t matter in a few minutes, anyway. You may call me Joshua and I,” it spread its arms in a display of pride and arrogance, “ _ am  _ Shibuya.” 

“How can someone be a city?” 

“Not just a city,” Joshua leaned forward, clasping its hands together. “A whole  _ world.  _ You know plenty about other worlds, don’t you?” 

Nio felt her heart stutter in her chest as she remembered those months drifting through unfamiliar towns, fearing the shadows that wanted to kill her and everyone else. She looked away from the figure and stared at her feet. The floor was glass, she realized. Fish swam calmly in the water beneath them. “You can tell, huh?” she murmured. 

“Shibuya was gone,” Joshua said, voice dissolving more into static around the edges. The piano behind the voice was sharp. “I did my best to hold it together, to keep all the pieces from scattering. Some pieces, however… slipped through the cracks.” 

“And I’m one of those pieces?” Nio couldn’t help but feel a small sense of pride at that, at personally making a higher being’s day just a little more difficult. 

“ _ Yes, _ ” Joshua said, with feeling. “Shibuya is more than a city and more than a world. Shibuya is… a  _ song _ . A constantly evolving melody made up of all the people who live inside it. Their hopes, dreams, pain, and longing… it all weaves together to form the song of the city, the  _ world _ . You,” it pointed at her, more than a little accusatory, “have been  _ infected  _ by the music of other worlds. The melody etched into your soul is not one that can exist here.” 

“He doesn’t mean any disrespect,” the man behind the counter spoke up, walking to their seats with two cups of coffee. He handed one to Nio and placed the other in front of Joshua. He sat on an adjacent chair, arms loosely crossed in front of his chest, feet resting on the coffee table. “He just has rules he needs to follow and none of the social graces to back himself up.” 

Nio couldn’t help but smile at that. She sipped her coffee - it wasn’t the best. “You are?” 

The man waved her off, “Just call me Mr. H. I’m not important, I’m only here to observe and keep him in check.” 

Joshua muttered something that almost sounded like, “ _ I don’t need a babysitter,”  _ he sighed and continued, “If you enter the UG with another world’s song, there’s no telling how it would influence the RG. Shibuya has already been torn apart once and I am  _ not  _ going to risk having it happen again.” 

Mr. H jumped in to explain, “The Shibuya that you know of is called the Realground, the RG. The UG - Underground - is a parallel plane of existence on top of the RG. Think of it like frequencies on a radio - same place, but a different channel. The things that occur in the UG often echo in the RG. It’s usually limited to acts of creativity, like art, music, and fashion, but... as he said, we don’t want to take any risks.”

“The song in my heart can end up bringing the shadows back,” Nio realized. Mr. H hesitated, but he nodded in confirmation. “How did I even end up here?” Nio asked, gesturing around the room. “I was… I was just walking down the street and now, this!” 

Mr. H winced, but Joshua showed no such sympathy. “You died,” he responded, with no hesitation. “You were crossing the street and you were hit by a drunk driver.” 

Nio froze, not wanting to comprehend the words. “Are you  _ fucking kidding me?”  _

Mr. H rubbed the back of his neck, “No, we’re not, unfortunately. After everything else you survived, you happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.” 

“That’s such  _ bullshit _ .” 

“We don’t control what happens in the RG,” Joshua cut in, static sharp enough to make Nio wince, “We can only control what happens after. All we can do now is fix the situation with your song.” 

“And how are you going to do that?”

“When you die, you typically enter the Reaper’s Game and fight for the chance to be brought back to life.” Mr. H explained, “If you entered the Game as you are, we could face those consequences we talked about. In order to avoid that, we need to extract the song from your heart - not the entire thing, just the parts that don’t belong.” 

“And since I’m feeling  _ especially  _ generous, given the tragedy of your circumstances,” Joshua said, straightening his back and lifting his chin. “I’m going to give you a choice.” 

“A choice?” Nio asked, curiosity getting the best of her.

Joshua smiled. “I extract the song from your heart and you play the Game like everyone else. You won’t remember the existence of other worlds, or what you experienced on them. You’ll get a chance to come back to life, with the risk of complete erasure.  _ Or,  _ when I extract the song, you follow it back where it came from. The rules of death work differently out there. You’ll leave Shibuya behind and live whatever fractured existence is waiting for you.”

“Why would I chose the second one, if I can just follow the rules and win the game?”

“The Game isn’t that simple,” Mr. H sighed. “You won’t be facing other people, you’ll be facing the Reapers, too. No matter how much you beg, they’re not going to show mercy. It takes just one wrong move for you to be gone forever.” 

“Think of it like this,” Joshua continued, “With one choice you face the chance of life with an even greater chance of oblivion. It’s like a slot wheel - you can try to get the timing just right, but it’s really up to fate. You also risk death with the other choice, but that depends entirely on how much you want to live. There’s no fate, there’s only the sheer force of will.” 

“We can’t help you if you choose to enter the Game,” Mr. H said, voice and eyes reflecting a seriousness that didn’t match the rest of him. “But if you choose to leave, there aren’t any rules saying we can’t give you some power to face whatever’s waiting outside of our jurisdiction.”

The atmosphere in the room was unbelievably heavy. Nio was silent as she looked into her empty coffee cup. She twisted it in her hands and weighed the options in front of her. “I want to live,” she said, with a quiet, yet firm conviction. “I’d rather be fractured than erased completely.” She set her cup down and looked where she assumed Joshua’s eyes would be. “I refuse to die like this.” 

To her surprise, Joshua laughed, voice crackling and piano joyfully trilling up the major scale, “Spoken like a true human,” he stood up and held out his hand. 

Nio stood, but she stared at the hand, frowning. “I won’t be able to come back, would I?” 

Mr. H answered, instead of Joshua. “You might find a way to return, but Shibuya will never be  _ yours _ in the way it is now. You’ll be a stranger to everyone and everything here.” 

“I see,” Nio said, chewing her lip briefly. She sighed and felt her muscles loosen as she made her final decision. “I’ve always been a stranger, anyway,” she took Joshua’s hand.

Immediately, she felt something integral to her very  _ being  _ rip itself away from her. She didn’t have the chance to take anything back. 

She was already gone. 


End file.
